Subject: [alpine-devel] Fw: [acf] 300 Mbps router, VServer, Squid caching

From: Natanael Copa <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 20 Jun 2013 09:58:41 +0200

I am forwarding to alpine-devel which currently serves as 'user'
mailing list.

Sorry for not having a proper alpine-user mailing list. I think its
about time that we set one up.

Begin forwarded message:

Date: Wed, 19 Jun 2013 17:46:35 -0400
From: Eric Duncan <[email-masked]>
To: [email-masked]
Subject: [acf] 300 Mbps router, VServer, Squid caching

Hello:

I recently found out about the Alpine project and am quite impressed
with the project goals.  I apologize ahead of time for the long post,
but i tend to spill all my details at once.  Recently I have updated
my FiOS network to 300Mbps/65Mbps speeds, and my ye'old DD-WRT router
that can't handle those speeds.  So, I am looking to build my own *nux
box as a firewall/router (it's been 15+ years since the last time I
did that).

I have the hardware laying around I do believe that will serve as an
excellent router, so I am interested in some specifics on how you
would setup an Alpine instance.  Pardon my jargon, as I am just now
catching up on Alpine's project.  The hardware is a bit overkill for a
router/firewall, so I was thinking of serving more than one purpose
with this box.

Requirements:

* High-performance router and firewall, for 300 Mbps connection (I
play games behind this)

Additional/Dual purposing ideas:

* Squid caching server for my 5+ MediaWiki sites, and maybe a few of
my C# sites if I change their code to update it.
* Possibly an Apache hosting box/virtual machine

Hardware:

* Intel S3210SH LGA775 Server board
* Intel ICH9R Raid controller
* Intel Q9450 Quad core, 12MB cache, 1333 Mhz FSB
* 8 GB 800mhz ram
* Intel Pro/1000 MT Server network card (onboard)
* Intel 82566DM-2 Server network card (onboard)

(optionally, I have an Core i7 930 w/12 GB of ram just laying around
if that's not enough)

What I understand of Alpine is there is a VServer option.  I know 0%
about this kind of setup on Linux.

1) How are the network interfaces shared/setup with VServer?

What can I do/what setup should I concentrate on to minimize network
latency for the high-speed 300 Mbps networks?

2) Under Alpine VServer distro, does the router/firewall run under the
host, or an additional virtual machine?

I am just worried about the latency introduced if within a VM at
running at 300 Mbps speeds.  I already have seen this first hand with
a Hyper-V machine I've setup temporarily.

3) If I wanted to setup Squid, would I do it under the host or a new
VM of a Linux distro of my choice?

Again, just concerned about the network latency of 65 Mbps upstream of
the Squid caching box.

4) How would I monitor a simple RAID 1 setup on the host for any drive
failures?  I admit I haven't run *nix systems in > 15 years so some
nudging in the right direction is all I need.  I plan on throwing this
into the basement and forgetting about it for years to come, until I
get an email alert that a drive has failed.

Note above I stated that this Intel mobo has an ICH9R so it should
have pretty common drivers.

Optionally, the Core i7 board, while not having as nice as NICs as the
Intel board, does have an ICH10R if those drivers are more mature for
RAID monitoring.

Thanks for your replies, and sorry for the long post.
Eric

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